


the teenage queen (the loaded gun)

by chernoble (stardustardie)



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: But He's Still Not a Cinnamon Roll, Gen, L Is Not the Worst, Misa Amane Is Not Stupid, Not Canon Compliant, Probably who knows, She knows what's up dude, i like misa and i like L and i just want them to level with each other, uhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 03:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18112082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustardie/pseuds/chernoble
Summary: There's something about a nighttime cityscape and the somber look in Ryuzaki's eyes that makes Misa want to do something dangerous.Of course, by dangerous, she means honest.





	the teenage queen (the loaded gun)

**Author's Note:**

> i have other fics to work on but i had to write something for these two because they are. my favorites

Misa Amane has rules.

One - the most important - is loyalty. She has her own and she will protect them with everything she’s got.

The other is not so much a one-word principle as it is a sort of maxim. _Don’t hurt others unless it’s absolutely necessary._

Misa Amane is also a creature of passion, and so her definitions of ‘necessary’ vary from moment to moment. But she tries. For her parents, she tries. For her fans. For herself. _For Light._

Even if Light doesn’t seem to share her rules.

From the very start, Light had taken Misa by the hand and pointed out the _bad people._ Don’t trust them, Misa. Always be on guard. They’re waiting for the perfect moment to topple me - to topple _us._

And she knows, she knows he never means it when he says _we_ and _us_ and _I love you_ , and she knows he’s a superb actor who could talk a lion out of its mane. She knows the type; a lifetime of acting and performing weren’t useless, after all. Light Yagami is perfection with selfishness behind it, and yet Misa consciously continues to follow his lead.

He avenged her parents, after all. His leading goal is, from her view, viable. It was more than enough for her to claim him as one of _hers_ , and Misa Amane is not the type to let go. She will love and she will cherish and she will defend with her life, because that is what she was born to do.

But it doesn’t stop her from questioning.

_We need to get rid of him, Misa_ , Light says about Ryuzaki - about L. _His ultimate goal is to destroy justice and tear us apart. We can’t let that happen, right?_

He sounds like a cultist. Still, she smiles prettily up at him, the kind that makes her head look empty, because she knows that this kind of blind devotion is exactly what he needs.

_Of course, Light! Whatever you need, Misa will help!_

It’s an interesting game to play, seeing how well she can balance her allegiance to Light - her savior, her avenger, her love - and thinking for herself. It’s definitely a red flag that independence is almost mutiny, with Light, and Misa _knows_. She knows, she knows, but she was never meant for a calm and domestic relationship, right? This kind of danger fits the roles she was meant to play. This is what she was meant to be: Kira’s pet dragon.

It’s when she can’t sleep, after she’s been rejected again by an increasingly distant Light, that she pads quietly out to the task force’s common room. What she wouldn’t give for a drink, or maybe a small scoop of nonfat frozen yogurt, but life wasn’t a free giveaway tailored to suit her every want.

What greets her is the silhouetted figure of Ryuzaki himself, standing near-straight for once with his hands in his pockets as he looks out the window at all the little lights. Maybe it would have looked impressive, even thought-provoking, had the setting been anything other than a dark hotel room.

But as it is, Misa just thinks that he looks a little sad.

“Don’t you ever sleep, Ryuzaki?” _Lawliet_ , she almost says.

He barely turns to acknowledge her, and she almost thinks he didn’t hear her. But as she draws in a breath to repeat herself, louder, he speaks.

“There’s no time for sleep, Miss Amane,” he says, tone measured and even as always. “I’m thinking.”

Of course he’d call it _thinking_ \- all Misa sees is brooding. Geniuses with an obsession with justice seem to have that in common, she supposes. They always brood. Always.

“Classic Ryuzaki,” she sighs with a shake of her head. His reply is, to her, an invitation to come closer, and so she does. Quietly, slowly - this conversation is mutinous, the little voice in her head says. It sounds like Light; Misa waves it away.

When Misa reaches Ryuzaki’s spot at the hotel window, she can almost understand why he stands there. The lights of Japan carry a strange sort of beauty, and for her, a sense of home. She chances a glance up at the detective, realizing that he possesses an impressive height despite his abysmal posture. He stubbornly continues to peer out the window, catlike; his eyes, flat charcoal, do not reflect the twinkle and glow of the city.

She half-wonders if anything feels like home to him. She wonders if he ever feels safe.

“Tell me, Misa,” Ryuzaki says suddenly. It doesn’t startle her, though; his voice is naturally quiet and slides into the moment. “What makes you side so fiercely with him?”

He doesn’t need to speak Light’s name; they both know who he means. (And anyway, there’s a little piece inside her that is afraid speaking his name will summon him. It’s an arbitrary fear and she pointedly refuses to dwell on it. There’s no reason to _fear_ anything about Light.)

She doesn’t answer right away, and he waits without a word. Ryuzaki is not a friend, and she almost spits out the usual confidence-laced answer: _well, because I love him! Light is the best thing to happen to me, so of course I believe in him!_

But late nights like this don’t lend themselves to facades. And maybe it’s just the atmosphere, or maybe it’s the gentle probing of Ryuzaki’s tone, so unlike an interrogation for once. Maybe it’s her own exhaustion with this game of cat and mouse. Maybe it’s that tiny flicker of defiance in her, the one that recoils every time she submits to Light’s whim without being paid a sliver of affection in return.

Maybe it’s that she hasn’t been honest about anything since falling in with Light Yagami.

_If honesty is mutiny_ , she thinks, dangerously, _why not rebel a little?_

“Ryuzaki,” begins Misa, testing the waters. It feels wrong, to speak to him so directly. Light wouldn’t approve. Ryuzaki watches her, his pallid face giving nothing away.

Rebellion, but not too much. Nothing incriminating.

“I… don’t know how much you know about love,” Misa says, and inhales deeply. “But it makes you do things. Things that maybe aren’t good for you, or other people, or even anyone except for the one you love. I know Light isn’t… the best, but I love him. And sometimes it hurts me, and sometimes I wonder why I even try.

“But it’s love,” she says decisively, tiredly, and it surprises her. “It’s hard to understand, but I have to support my Light. No matter what he does or doesn’t do.”

It’s a barefaced admission of the flaws she sees in him, and she’s uncomfortably aware that most, if not all, of her words were negative and unsure. But maybe that’s her truth: she’s too loyal for her own good, but she is not blind to the wrongs around her.

Ryuzaki is silent, but then, isn’t he always? And Misa can feel the way he’s analyzing her face, taking her words and dissecting them and turning them at every angle, looking for something useful to him. She’s not stupid; she knows that he doesn’t ask her things out of the goodness of his heart or the personal concern he feels for her. She vaguely worries that she might have said too much, might have left some subconscious hint in her words that speaks of Light’s true identity.

But, no. Sometimes a girl in a troubled relationship is just a girl in a troubled relationship. She knows what she said.

Ryuzaki, for his part, turns his eyes back to the window. They are shadowed under his unruly shock of hair, and coupled with his insomnia-born dark circles, make him look well and truly strung out.

“Light isn’t good enough for you, Miss Amane,” he says softly. “It seems only you and I see that.”

_Not good enough?_ she’s about to retort, somewhat indignant that he thinks he has the right to deem whether or not Light is _good._ But she keeps her mouth shut.

Ryuzaki shuffles slightly on the balls of his feet, then, looking slightly uncomfortable. Well, more than usual. There’s a trace of hesitance when he speaks next, as if he’s not sure whether or not it’s appropriate. It’s funny; he doesn’t usually worry about that sort of thing.

“Well, should the need arise,” he offers without sparing her a glance, “know that Watari is always available.”

Then, quieter, noncommittal, punctuated by a hand reaching up to rub at the nape of his neck in thought: “Or myself, occasionally. But keep in mind that I am usually busy.”

The way he extends the invitation reminds Misa of a child begrudgingly offering to share one of his toys. She can see the reluctance in his posture, and she knows that it’s mostly out of his loose grasp of courtesy that he even says anything.

Still, she finds herself inexplicably charmed by it; it’s actually a little sweet, and she tells him so. It’s almost funny, and a little sad, that the sleuth came to the conclusion that Light was subjecting her to emotional abuse.

( _Isn’t it?_ says another little voice in the back of her mind. It sounds like Ryuzaki; Misa waves it away.)

“I never knew you could be such a sweetheart, Ryuzaki!” she says - and then, because it’s her way, she rises on her tiptoes and pecks him on the cheek. Just for a second. Just long enough to catch the way he stiffens, jaw going a bit slack. She laughs shortly. “Thank you! I’ll keep it in mind, okay?”

“Of course,” Ryuzaki mumbles, and she can tell that, for at least a second or two, he’d almost jumped out of his own skin. He’s ill-at-ease with normal people, and she almost feels bad.

Mercifully, she decides to leave him to his own devices. She can feel the drag of sleepiness pulling at her now, and marvels to think that it was the lanky, socially inept detective who cured her restlessness.

“I think I’m going to sleep now,” she announces, and turns on her heel. Casting him a friendly little wave, she chides, “Try to at least take a five-minute nap, Ryuzaki! You look so tired!”

And she figures that’s that. The conversation was markedly less stressful than she’d expected coming into it. Light, she decides, doesn’t need to know about it.

She’s almost out the door when Ryuzaki speaks up again, evidently not done.

“Misa?”

Pausing, she turns to look, eyes owlish and expectant. The detective still stands, half-turned, and meets her gaze head-on. She could almost swear that his mouth is pressed into a curious half-smile.

“You haven’t spoken in third-person once tonight,” Ryuzaki remarks, and he sounds faintly amused.

“What?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” And just like that, the warmth in his voice cools down to a distant civility, and he’s removed himself from the exchange. Come morning, Misa will find herself questioning whether it existed at all. “Have a good night, Miss Amane.”

“Yeah,” Misa says, feeling almost jilted. “You too, Ryuzaki.”

 


End file.
